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How is this possible? There have been decades of atrocities, unbreakable cycles of violence, the world over. Countless children sacrificed to the power struggles over land and its resources. Nigeria has devolved into chaos.

Legacies of colonialization and Western arrogance. And backlash.

This is the one case that is gaining international attention. Because of the brazenness and insanity of the Boko Haram fighters. How does a militant group, fighting in the name of God, kidnap 276 school girls to sell them into marriage and slavery?

These girls. These poor girls. Their poor families. I cannot imagine what it is to have my child taken from me by lawless gangs who roam with impunity.

This massive kidnapping is about radicalism and the cheapness of human life, in general, and that of a girl’s life, in particular.

And the knowledge of the perpetrators that we, in the United States, will soon turn back to the results of the NFL draft. And then they can do this again. And again. And again. Until no child is spared from the war crimes.
Our souls, and our beliefs in the sanctity of human life and in the God-given right of a child to realize his or her potential, lie in the balance of our nation’s response to this crisis and others like it across the globe. Let’s find these girls, airlift them and their families and share the bounty of our nation with them. It isn’t fair to those left behind, but it is a start. And, in Jewish theology, it is a person’s moral obligation to save even one life even if one cannot save everyone.

God bless and keep these girls, and keep them safe from more ravages of war.

Once we believed that our political and sports heroes could save us our innocence and our dreams from the stark realities of war, assassinations and a nation divided.

We looked to them — to Joe after Marilyn’s death, to Jackie after JFK’s assassination, to Coretta after Rev. Dr. MLK’s assassination — to steady us. To remind us of better times and take us past the tragedies. To take us back to a winning baseball team, to Camelot, to a place where dreams were possible.

God bless you, please, [this America].Heaven holds a place for those who pray.(Hey, hey, hey.)

Today, I am scared. Because we are a nation so bitterly divided. Because my dreams are ever less fanciful, my reality ever less comforting, my hopes and expectations ever lower, than just a week, month or year ago.

And there are no heroes, but where is there a parent who wants to tell that to his/her children?

Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids.

What is the embodiment of my fears? Heritage Action for America scuttled any potential deal on the debt ceiling in the House of Representatives. Because lawmakers are taking their cues from lobbyists-thinktanks-donors and not their frightened constituents. That very action breaks the very foundation of our nation — representational government.

Laugh about it, shout about itWhen you’ve got to chooseEvery way you look at this you lose.

And all that people have worked for, and saved for, and paid taxes for, hangs in the balance. Because we, the people, are pawns in a power grab.

WE, THE PEOPLE.

We whom our government serves.

WE, THE PEOPLE.

About whom no one seems to care.

WE, THE PEOPLE.

Joltin Joe has left and gone away (hey hey hey). It isn’t the same to turn our frightened eyes to A-Rod.

Mom and Dad always taught us that if you lose, you lose with dignity. You don’t take your marbles and stomp off.

Except I never played marbles and I had no idea what they were talking about. Just like my son doesn’t understand the phrase, “you sound like a broken record.”

But, eventually, I got the point. If you lose fair and square, then you congratulate the winner and move on. You don’t try to pretend the game never happened or that the winner cheated or that you were robbed of the trophy.

Unless, of course, you are part of the Tea Party. Then you think that G-d is your co-pilot and that Barack Obama is not a legitimate president because, well, how could we elect a black man and no black man was ever born in the State of Hawaii. (SIDEBAR: Ted Cruz, you were born in Canada and had dual citizenship until a week ago.)

Let’s be fair. We have had presidents who ascended to the highest office in the land under a cloud. The “elections” ofJohn F. Kennedy and George W. Bush come to mind.

But the Tea Party did not mind George W. Bush being president. Hmmmmmmm.

Maybe because they “won”? Hey, I remained an ordinary, law abiding citizen and patriot even through the terrible years of Bush/Cheney. And I did not think they were duly elected, but the Supreme Court spoke.

I didn’t take my marbles and stomp off. But, now the Tea Party is mad because Barack Obama is president, and a legitimate president.

But the government shut down and the debt ceiling should not be about one man and his health care reform and his birth certificate.

These issues are about the people you all pretend to care about.

This is America and the majority spoke. Be patriots. Show the world that this is your country, come what may. Come on, I dare you, Tea Party members of Congress.

Put country first.

Hey, I am as liberal as they come and I say to you, “Less government? ok. No government? Anarchy.”

And anarchy is treason.

And so are breaching the public trust and the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

And then you will see citizens like me — middle-aged, economically secure (or so we thought) taxpayers — take to the streets and scream for your heads because you let our nation default.

So, before you smugly take your marbles and stomp off, remember, if you let our nation default —-

then you are no better than Benedict Arnold, betraying your country and fellow citizens and playing roulette with the total collapse of the republic.

Before I tell you about the award and the winner, there is (of course) a back story:

It begins in WWII, when American Jews were angry with FDR for not bombing the railroad tracks to the concentration camps. Let’s be honest, in 1945, no one really liked Jews. And the war was not to save Jews, but to stop a tyrant’s domination of a continent.

Before that war, there was the annihilation of Armenians at the hands of Turks. No one said anything.

And before that, so many atrocities dating to the Crusades and earlier.

And, a thousand years of slavery.

And, then, so much that it is impossible to list.

And, the the brutality of colonialism.

And then, the United States used Napalm against civilians in Vietnam. CHEMICAL WEAPONS. Our use inspired the international treaty against using such heinous weapons.

Fast forward to the atrocities in Africa.

And the mess in the former Yugoslavia. President Clinton ordered the bombings of the bridges leading to those death camps.

And then President George H. W. Bush who took a moral and geopolitical stand against Iraq and its use of chemical warfare against its neighbors. GHWB showed American willingness to smack down an ally who commits atrocities with weapons that we sold to it.

And then there was the Shrub, the little Bush, who didn’t find chemical weapons in Iraq (those reviled WMDs), because they had been transported to Syria. But we destroyed that country anyway.

And no one called George W. Bush an amateur or a waffler or a liar or a cheat. And he led us into a war with no strategery (his word) for the way out, let alone a reason to go in.

And, atrocities occur every day, all over the world, in every corner. Most particularly against the children, women and the enfeebled — those who have the least power in society.

So, here we are with Syria, under a credible threat of force from the United States, telling the world that it has chemical weapons and agreeing to disarm. And Russia is taking the lead, as Syria’s ally, to make sure that America doesn’t bomb Syria. Pretty good outcome so far — an admission that eluded GWB, an effort to dismantle Syria’s WMDs, as the US armed forces are on stand-by if anyone doesn’t deliver on promises made. Others are doing the work because a bombing mission would shake Russia’s influence and bring down Russia’s ally in the region.

Not a bad outcome for “amateur” President Obama. But no one gives him credit [this is for another blog]

And yet, all I hear from the pundits is: how the President faring politically and whether it will affect his domestic agenda, and how there is no reason for us to stop the use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Ok, this is not about a president. This is about children. It is not about politics. It is about whether or not, to use a “quaint” analogy, to bomb railroad tracks to death camps.

I don’t know the right answer. I don’t think there is one.

But this I know:

If you thought that FDR should have bombed the tracks leading to Auschwitz and you don’t support saving children from lethal gas, you have lost your moral authority;

if you ever thought that Napalm was one of the most heinous acts against humanity, sit down and shut up because you have lost your moral argument;

if you wanted George W. Bush to go into Iraq, G-d help you because you have no moral judgment and should “self-deport”;

if you are a “Progressive” in today’s politics, you have no backbone, and if you are a GOP hawk, you are just saying no because Obama is president, so you wouldn’t know a backbone if your doctor showed it to you on an xray;

if you say that there is misery and brutality the world over and why are we not protecting civilians in Africa, you have an excellent point;

if you don’t care about Syrian children and civilians (or Afghanis, or Kurds or African tribes), I ask, (paraphrasing the great Rabbi Hillel) if you are only for yourself, who are you?

if you say that there are too many risks to this action, when we have soldiers the world over, I ask (against paraphrasing the great Rabbi Hillel) if not now, then when?

And so, the Full of Shit (FOS) awardgoes to . . . . all of us, from the UN to Geneva to Oslo, from Wall Street to Main Street to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, from MSNBC to CNN to FOX, from me to you. I don’t know what the right answer is, but I know we are asking all the wrong questions.

The right questions take guts and require that we talk about who we are and what we are willing to sacrifice (in lives and taxes) to do all the things we say we ought to do, until the moment comes for action.

May G-d bless the children of Syria, the children of all countries and, please, let them no longer be the fodder of war, the currency of politics, and the blind spot of the world.

Yom Kippur ended just two hours ago. Jews fast on Yom Kippur as a part of penance and as a sign of the solemnity of the Holy Day. And as part of our petition to G-d to save our lives and inscribe us in the Book of Life for the coming year.

The fast is from sundown to sundown. Actually, it is longer. It starts when you last eat before you rush to synagogue to get good seats (our egalitarian synagogue does not have assigned seating) until you eat again the next night — at least 25 hours later, when there are three stars in the sky. But really, this is New York. You can’t see stars and you can’t immediately break the fast. First you have to push people into the street to steal the cab and make your way to your break-fast meal. Because no time like the present to start sinning again and, if you are going to start, you need to do it in a spectacular way, like stealing that cab from people who, only minutes ago, you hugged and kissed and wished a happy and healthy Jewish New Year.

But, I digress.

SOS wanted to fast this year. He is only 11 years-old and I was not a fan of his fasting so young. He was determined, and at points during the day, miserable to be around. But he was steadfast and resisted my entreaties to eat. He spent the whole day in synagogue with us, until the Shofar (ram’s horn) blew at 8pm, ending the Holy Day and the fast. We didn’t start eating until after 9pm.

As we walked to the restaurant for our break-fast meal, SOS said, “I won’t survive another minute!!”

“Sweetie, I promise you will. You are hungry but you won’t expire. Some people live like this.”

“E-Mom, do you know that there are so many kids like me who live in the City and go to sleep hungry? I have never felt this hungry before. This is horrible.”

“Can you imagine being this hungry and going to sleep at night or having to go to school?”

In my experience, life is about getting up after you have been smacked down. Every privilege has an underbelly. Even a smack-down has an empowering attribute.

Of course, I am speaking from the position of society’s fortunate daughters.

Recently, I have witnessed or heard about profound loss, familial estrangement, financial issues, etc. The “imperfect” side of our perfect, privileged world.

A world, in which ten years ago, POB was edited out of our class alumni news.

SIDEBAR: Was it an issue of space in our alumni column? Nah. Other significant others, who were not alums, made it in print.

A world in which having a hard time raising kids is glossed over with pretty pictures of vacations in exotic places.

A world in which marriage is for keeps, no matter how those bond have disintegrated.

A world in which money woes don’t exist because everyone must be wildly successful.

A world in which one’s children must be the best and the brightest.

A world that doesn’t really exist, except in alumni bulletins.

Because life isn’t easy, except for the very few or the profoundly disconnected. I bet there are people struggling everyday under the weight of issues they never thought they would have — or should have — considering their pedigrees.

Life is hard. That is real. The prep school, college and/or graduate school alumni magazines are kicks for a peek into the world of the clueless.

I can’t keep up with our classmates’ glossies. My life is a mish-mash of love and estrangement, life and loss, money and not-so-much-money, health and illness, and a wonderful, yet imperfect kid (who has wonderful, yet wholly imperfect parents).

Sometimes, it is too damn hard to raise kids. And let’s be honest about that. Those who don’t know that haven’t gotten their hands dirty with the details of their children’s lives. We dip into our savings to give SOS all we can. We won’t go on vacation this year because it is more important that he go to camp. Ok, I am not rich in dollars this year. But, successful? Depends on how you measure it.

And, what have we — the perfect and imperfect, alike — done with our lives after 50 years? Have we inspired people to do good? Have we educated the next generation? Have we reached out a hand (and resources) to make a young person’s dream of higher education come true? Or will we have so many meaningless toys at the end of our lives and have squandered chances to make a real difference?

My mother, as she lie dying, blessed each of her children and said, “I had a good life. I wish it were longer. I love your father. And he is such a wonderful man. And I am proud of you [the kids], and I think I helped people and healed the world just a little. It was a good life.”

I want to be able to repeat my mother’s words about my life, when my time comes. I promise you I will not be rich in dollars and cents. I hope I am rich in what matters.

Yesterday, POB, SOS and I joined a group of well-heeled, mulit-cultural (I might add) Upper West Siders on a bus to West Philadelphia to get out the vote for Obama.

We arrived at an Obama field office.

We were given clipboards with lists of voters who hadn’t voted in 2010. We had to knock on doors to make sure that these citizens knew that their vote was important, what they needed for proper ID (and that the Pennsylvania voter suppression law was struck down) and the location of their polling booths.

POB and I were given names on opposite side of the street. SOS tagged along with one of us. People were so welcoming and glad we were out in the cold making sure that they knew where to vote. Many people weren’t at home; the people who answered the doors said they were at work.

West Philly is not exactly the cushy part of town. It was working class until the Great Recession. Now, parts are boarded up.

High unemployment. Crime skyrocketing. See the sign in the pizza place below.

When I was in there buying a pizza, someone came in with a hoodie, and the cashier said, “take off your hoodie, or I am calling the police.” The management is serious about the hoodie thing.

It seemed (to my white, upper middle class, eye) that many needed a reminder that their vote counts. Certainly, with all the attempts at voter suppression, a person could give up hope. But, more than anyone else, their lives are literally on the line — the poverty line — depending on the outcome on Tuesday.

Some places were scary and creepy. SOS was a little unnerved by these places. Especially, a young boy who was outside with no one minding him. (Yes, sweetie, I thought, please think about this when you re-enter your rarefied world.)

Among the three of us, we knocked on 120 doors and got some very enthusiastic responses (once they realized we weren’t canvassing for Romney).

POB, SOS and I talked about our adventure over dinner tonight. I tried to make the point to SOS that his great-grandparents were the working (or sometimes not working) poor who lived and raised their children in tenements and then, later on, in nicer places. But his grandparents had a great public school system and there were jobs for them when they graduated. And that I am one generation removed from this neighborhood. And Grandpa got mixed up with a gang before his brothers intervened (and then beat the crap out of him).

I don’t know if he understood the importance of what we did, as citizens of this country, and as a way to pay forward our family’s good fortune and opportunity by re-electing President Obama. I believe this. And I always will.

After work, I rushed for my 7pm appointment at Bliss. Facial with micro-dermabrasion (who knows how that is spelled). POB had one and, because she does not want to be a Bridezilla — in contradistinction to my Bridezombie — I had to have one, too.

So, I changed into my robe and slippers and joined others in the quiet room permeated by lemon and sage scents. There were healthy (and not so healthy) snacks and lemon-infused water. I ate some sliced cucumbers and drank the water (Bliss’s version of Kool-Aid). There were four of us in our matching robes and slippers waiting for our treatments, with the new age music and the scents filling the air and I thought this must be a high-end version of an insane asylum. Judging by how the “technicians” greeted the other inmates, I was the only non-recidivist in the bunch.

Then, my name was called. Nanetta was my technician. Did I fill in the new inmate form? She asked with an Eastern European accent. No, the concierge didn’t ask me to fill anything out. “Come with me,” she said, in a tone that suggested that I had been transported from 57th Street to the gulag. Why again did POB need me to endure this? Nanetta told me to take off my robe and get under the sheets on the table. Oh, no, I am prisoner in Soviet hell.

She asked me about the moisturizers I use. I told her I don’t really use moisturizer and, if I do, it is whatever POB buys. She shined a beaming light into my eyes. “You don’t know moisturizer?” she said in an accusatory tone. Omigod, I am going to die for the sin of taking my good genes for granted. “I do what I can!” I said in a way that is the intersection between emphatic and meek. The crashing you hear is the tension underlying post-USSR Eastern European and the descendants of those who fled the USSR in 1921.

Nanetta took pity on me and put cucumber slices over my eyes. “I just snacked on cucumber slices in the waiting room!” I said to bridge the divide between us. She laughed, in a slightly un-amused way. The gulag, for sure.

She started the micro-dermabrasion. “Does this hurt?”

“As much as vacuuming my face with sand paper hurts, I imagine.” (what else was I supposed to say?)

“Would you like the anti-aging collagen treatment? It only costs —-”

“If you say, ‘anti-aging’ I don’t care how much it costs. Do it.”

Now we could relax because I was an easy mark for anything that promised the Fountain of Youth.

We chatted about life and her story about coming to this country. Nanetta is Romanian and was pleased that I knew a little about the country’s history pre- and shortly post- USSR’s implosion. She struggled to learn English and put her daughter through school. She has endured hardships, but she makes a living through the self-indulgence of people with money. I wondered if she smirks at the irony.

She asked about my beauty treatment history and I told her that I was getting this done because I was marrying my partner. Whoa, that took a little time to sink in. (But this is New York, why?)

When she finished, my skin felt great. I went into the changing room and, having only a robe on, shed my robe as I prepared to get dressed. One of the house-staff asked me, as she was picking up my robe from the bin, “did you have a good visit with us?” Is this woman — a stranger — asking me to have a conversation while I am naked? Really? Really? “It was terrific. Excuse me while I put on some clothes.” I think that she realized that I was not one of the usual inmates who would chit-chat naked with a person who was fully clothed.

Call me the uptight Americana. I am totally good with that. Because if you want me to talk to you when I am naked, then you need to be naked, too. For the record, there aren’t that many people I want to talk to while either of us is naked. It sounds like a stress dream.

I dressed and walked along 57th Street with glowing skin, as a result of good genes from Mom and the efforts of Nanetta. I thought about a manicure and pedicure and all the other things that would make me feel even better about the trials and tribulations of life. But then I looked at expensive stores and expensive half-built high-rises and felt defeated and under-privileged (but with great skin).

I hopped a cab. My cab driver asked me if the buildings we were passing were Lincoln Center. I said “yes” and asked how long he has been driving driving.

“Three weeks but I have been in this country for one years [sic].”

“Where are you from?”

“Africa.”

“Where in Africa?”

“Sudan. Darfur, ma’am. One years [sic] ago since I left.”

There is nothing to say to someone who has been to Hell and back. I sat quietly and then had to say that the reason for my silence was that I was overwhelmed that he survived and escaped Darfur. I asked him how the rest of the world can stop the violence. He said that Save Darfur was a blessing (www.savedarfur.org).

I listened as he tried in broken English to tell me that the government does nothing but kill its citizens and the people are starving and there is no water or schools. And I offered lamely that I descend from survivors of atrocities and that there is hope for the generations to come. Then we passed a Pinky Nail Salon.

“Our nail salons must seem stupid.”

“Life is different here than in Sudan.”

The understatement in this conversation could make a person cry.

He said his sister and nieces and nephews have a better life in CHAD. Let’s all stop for a moment and realize that together we earn more the gross domestic product of Chad.

Life is better in Chad.

Life is better in Chad.

Hug your spouse, your children, your-pets-who-are-children and be amazed at where you live and what you have. Because, in this world, there are places for which CHAD is a step up.

Such was my day in the extremes that intersect in New York City; silently at first, but then with a great emotional burst of noise and pain, acknowledgement of plenty and nothing, experience of joy and sorrow, and of personal triumph and communal defeat.

Forget Kumbaya. Forget Elvis Costello’s “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?” Let’s have a civics lesson. What prompted this? A near altercation on the subway.

This is what happened: An older woman asked a young woman to lower her music. The younger woman, responded by saying, “No, she didn’t ask me that?” over and over. And then she offered that someone who made that kind of comment should get “bitch-slapped”. That went on for a while. The young woman seemed a little crazy — or an aggressive sociopath. A reasonable answer would have been, “No.”

The two women — strangers to each other — got off at the same station. Then the young woman accused the older woman of “touching” her as they got off the subway and started to go off about her rights to play her music in a public place. I was afraid for the older woman and almost got off the train (which meant jumping over people) until I could see that the older woman hurried away and the younger woman appeared more interested in yelling than in giving chase. By then, someone had taken my seat. Oh well.

After the doors closed in our car, a young man talked, ad nauseum, in a loud voice that the older woman was wrong and that she was lucky that the young woman didn’t get violent. Because the old woman deserved to get beaten if, for example, she interfered with his entitlement to play his music the way he wanted, even if that meant he played it loud in the subway. I was tempted to interject but after my last near altercation in the subway yesterday (where I told some teenagers to stop harassing a young woman), I learned that idiots are not worth my health or life.

The younger woman was troubled. The man in the subway who agreed with her either was grand-standing or is an ignoramus. I assume the latter.

So, let’s talk about rights and entitlements. The Constitution doesn’t confer the right to do anything and everything. It creates a system of obligations with safeguards to prevent tyranny. Entitlements are creatures of legislation; otherwise, you have the right to free speech and to starve to death.

The right to free speech is limited to reasonable time, reasonable place and reasonable manner. Inherent in that limitation is that speech cannot unreasonably interfere with other’s people’s and the states’ rights to the public peace. So, it is pretty well settled that you cannot hold a rally in a residential area after 10 pm. I don’t know whether playing music loud enough to fill a New York subway car is free speech. This may be part of the delicate balance that makes our country great. But I do know that the older woman had a right to ask and the younger had the right to say no.

Entitlements? A safety net for those who, try as hard as they can, they can’t earn enough to feed their families. The social compact is that, once able, these people will give back to the system. Just like my parents proudly paid their taxes to a country that gave them a free, excellent education. And just as I am proud to pay my taxes so that other strivers, like my parents and grandparents, will be able to make it. But I don’t recollect that the social compact went beyond sustenance, shelter and education to, let’s say, the entitlement to play music as loud as one wants in a public place.

I grew up knowing that democracy doesn’t guarantee a human’s survival (but if that human survives, he or she can stand on a soap box in Washington Square Park). Our society is a complicated web of social compacts that hinge one upon the other. Two of the underpinnings of this web are civic and civility.

If this episode is any example, this great experiment that is our nation is in the process of implosion. Unless, of course, that man would be good about my playing Patsy Cline out, loud and proud.

My professional coach (not CAFOB) had sent me a New Year’s greeting card which I finally got around to opening at a computer (as opposed to a blackberry). It was warm and wonderful and direct. Wishing me the usual for the new year, but also renewal and serenity.

Eureka!!! (My coach is awesome, but not as awesome as CAFOB who is my friend for 30 years. If you need a coach, I can give you two people who are amazing.)

Renewal. Not a theme of the Jewish new year (which has more of a return to G-d and atone theme). More a Passover theme (spring time, rebirth and renewal of the covenant with G-d). Nevertheless, I have been feeling the weight of creating business generating opportunities in a terrible economy.

I was so exhausted in August that when it came time for our family week in Montauk, I told the COB (colleague of blogger) that I would not be checking my blackberry and that all calls had to go through POB (partner of blogger). Originally, POB told me there was no wifi where we were staying and only POB’s phone would work. As it turned out, there was wifi and my blackberry worked. If POB lied to me, well, then I love her more for realizing that I needed a blackberry-free zone. Only twice did work intrude on the week.

When the world is in chaos, it is still navigable but it takes so much more energy that I often feel — well — spent.

My family re-charges me. POB and SOS (our son, source of sanity) are my mainstays, but SOB (sister of blogger) and HOSOB (husband of SOB) and Cousin Gentle help hold me up. They are daily miracles in my life. Even DOB (father of blogger) with all his eccentricities grounds me. And CB (Cousin Birder) links me to my mother’s family and he is such a wonderful guy. (I wish that CB only realized how awesome he is. I lectured him about this on Rosh Ha-Shanah — of course I did.)

And there are my goddaughters. They don’t have to love me because of family connection. We created that connection together. These relationships are among the most important in my life.

By their presence in my life, all of these people feed my soul, lessen my burden and give meaning to life. They are my agents of emotional and psychological renewal. I hope that I provide for them even a fraction of what they provide for me.

Serenity. Acceptance. Roll-with-it. What will be, will be. Take it as it comes. Don’t worry forward. Be in the moment.

Discussion: compare and contrast blogger’s personality with the above themes. (Hint: no common ground, as in blogger is the antonym of each of these themes. Don’t believe me? Read Wikipedia (right after I send in my comments).)

Ok, clap your hands if you’ve heard this before: someone has business in this economy, someone is figuring it out, someone is benefiting from all the problems!

Ok, if you have heard this, clap if you heard: “An A minus? What’s wrong with an A? Did someone get an A?”

Whoa, I hear a round of applause throughout the blogo-sphere.

This serenity thing is a hard one. But I did laugh these last two days when I looked at the wild ride of the stock market and how our retirement is now effectively pushed out to age 113. I will be the dead, yet-propped up greeter at Walmart’s. The company will love me because it won’t have to pay overtime (how will I know? I’ll be dead), and I won’t mind being in the freezer section.

At least I laughed. Ok, gallows humor, but, hey, it IS a start. I am trying to focus on the things that renew me because they also provide the building blocks of serenity — love, constancy and laughter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

But renewal and serenity are sooooooo much easier in a bull market and a roaring economy. Just sayin’.

My coach knows me well. This is the start of a journey for me — to allow time for renewal and to allow a sense of serenity in a chaotic world.